[TheAnimus]

Well what percentage of the target market is that going to be? And when are they planning to make it a mandatory requirement for things.

Given that at the moment it appears to be related to things such as voice + facial recognition and processing (which frankly I would want to see the privacy policy around) that's fine. No internet, means I have to press a button rather than yell. OK with that.

If its offloading games physics and AI when playing, well that's fine if its optional. I appreciate that certain kinds of ANNs distribute really well on server farms, in a way that makes sense. But so long as its optional.

However I think it is only a few years before we look back and laugh at the idea of not having internet access available. At least I hope we will.

[gordaco]

No, you're getting it wrong. It's not a matter of availability (although that is still a problem in certain areas). I just don't want my console to need connection if I don't play online, because it shouldn't need it, because it's a waste of bandwith, because it means that the software I buy may become unusable (or change their behaviour, i.e. not allowing cheating for fun in single player; or requiring some kind of game registration that hinders second hand games) via mandatory updates, and because it doesn't guarantee that the box is not being used as a surveillance machine for advertising companies.

[pi18n]

I agree with you but I doubt very much that Microsoft does. Requiring it to have a persistent connection and offloading core parts of the game to the cloud is going to be delightful for their DRM team.

[venomsnake]

And for the steambox team. There is (anecdotally strong) demand for single player games that you can play and mod however you desire.

[TheAnimus]

On the PC platform we've definitely seen it. Counter Strike been the obvious one.

But there is a different culture around PC and Console. Console has always had DRM, PCs drifted along with CD-Keys that limited online play, then Steam came along, which /r/gaming appears to fawn over, yet deride any similar change in DRM on the consoles.

As it stands, I think the PS3/Xbox360 are less restrictive because of their DRM than PC gamers who have to use Steam or Origin. The publishers needed a mechanism to stop what was told as rampant piracy. Steam filled that void.

Now consoles are moving more in that direction people are treating it as if its universally bad. It doesn't have to be. So long as it isn't a case of always internet, always on, from day one, I don't think it will be.

I remember people banging on about SmartClients less than 10 years ago. These were apps which would sync when the internet became available and gracefully handle the disconnection. Ironically Outlook was often the example. Nowadays most devs don't bother with that because there isn't the demand and its not worth the increased development and maintenance costs. I wanted some flowcharting software the other day, the first 3 hits were all online cloudy hosted type things. This is the way things are going, there are benefits, its not all bad!